Posts from 12th December 2003

12Dec 03

Linked is sound art, of a kind. Apparently you borrow a receiver device somewhere deep in the East London ‘ Essex borders and at various points along a route the device will pick up broadcast sound. The sound is speech and music, and is broadcast on and around the route of the M11, built with much protest and pain in the 1990s.

I like this idea partly because it reminds me of the introduction to the first Dexys LP, scrolling through the radio dial and hearing snippets of all sorts. And I like the introduction to the first Dexys LP because it always reminds me of how my memories seem to work, fragmentary and intangible.

I’d like to go and listen to this piece, I wonder whether you have to do it in a car? My East London geography leaves a lot to be desired. Walking from Redbridge to Leyton seems like a task of Hercules to me.

I’m totally serious about the moisturising thing. It’s only been a few days, but one thing has become apparent. Despite the Nivea packaging saying that it is “odour neutral” this is obviously a complete lie ‘ as with most men’s beautygrooming products it smells strongly of that rank “pine” associated with the interior of cars owned by heavy smokers. I must take this into consideration when soliciting results ‘ never mind double blind, we need double quoom* tests.

Honestly, do men’s soaps, men’s shower gel and the various “sport” variations have to smell this way too? Is there a law to enforce it?

In ye olden days (actually often not that olden but this is myth, give me a chance), ye godly Belgian Trappist monks took inspiration from the Lord and brewed heavenly beer. This they would consume in the pursuance of their own worship. Selling a little never harmed ye Abbey coffers, mind.

Everyone loved the monks’ beer, and everyone wanted some. It became big business, so much so that many monasteries took the step of licensing production of their brews to commercial concerns much better suited to dealing with the mass market. These licensed beers are known as Abbey Beers.

A hardy few stayed strong, though, and maintained their traditions. They’re called Trappist beers and you can count them on your fingers: Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle and Westvleteren. They’re concerned with purity and continuity, they like things as they were. My friends, these few hardy souls are the true indie of the beer world (just in case you don’t believe they’re really indie, check out the arguments about whether Achelse Kluis or Koningshoeven count as Trappist’) .

Now we all know that all sensible discussions of things indie end up revolving around one key issue: who or what is the most indie? In the world of Trappist beers, there can only be one answer, and that’s Westvleteren.

How indie is Westvleteren? Very indie indeed. Why? Well:

1. It’s very, very difficult to buy in the shops. The classical way to buy Westvleteren is to drive to the monastery where they make it, where a monk type fellow apparently opens a shop every now and again when he feels like it. There’s a bar near the monastery which stocks it, too. (Londoners please note: you can sometimes find it in the wonderful Bottles on the Commercial Road in Shadwell, which is the Rough Trade of the beer enthusiast.)2. The bottles have no labels. To have a pretty label would be a sell-out on a par with New Order writing their name on their LP covers, never mind all manner of issues with graven images and that. There are three different Westvleterens available for sale: 6, 8 and 12. The 12 is the darkest and the strongest and most complex and savoury. These can be distinguished by their differently coloured caps.
3. It is known that Westvleteren brew another beer but that is kept back for the sole consumption of the monks themselves. (‘The demos, man, the demos’ they’re the best thing they ever did”)

The thing is that it’s all very well for me to be smart about square headed indieist beer hunters, but these beers are unbelievably good. The fact that Westvleteren is one of the holy grails of Those Who Sup is about more than just scarcity, it’s about quality, too. Has my analogy broken down? I’m not sure.

Time Machine

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